Steve Bisson/Savannah Morning News Searching for items that have a human odor, "Flash" finds a gun and takes it to the trainer. This type of training is especially valuable when searching at night or in a wooded area.

On May 17, members of the Savannah-Chatham police K-9 unit had just completed training when they received word of an attempted robbery and kidnapping that would ultimately lock down downtown Savannah during a standoff at the Olde Pink House restaurant.

The small unit of five officers and their four-legged partners train together for hours on a weekly basis. This turned out to be a stroke of luck because the case required their combined expertise as well as the keen abilities of the canines — including lowering a dog through the restaurant’s roof so it could catch the suspect.

The actions of the unit that day in apprehending two suspects were recently rewarded by the U.S. Police Canine Association, which cited the unit for best performance nationally in the second quarter of 2012. The award qualifies the unit for the best canine patrol case for the year.

Russ Hess, USPCA executive director, said the Savannah case is the first he can remember that involved an entire unit being up for the case of the year award.

“That is pretty unusual,” he said. “It usually only involves one officer and one dog.”

The winner of the best canine patrol case for the year will be selected next spring. An award ceremony will follow in September in Washington, D.C.

A bond between a handler and his or her dog can take up to a year to obtain. The relationship is strengthened through constant hours of training exercises. Not only are the dogs seen as partners by the officers, but they also become like extended family members who live at home with them.

But “he’s not a pet,” officer Will Fernandez was quick to say about his K-9 Flash. “I keep my dog separate from my family just because he is a dog, and I don’t need any accidents. ... he’s a tool and unfortunately he has to be used as a tool.”

Like most K-9 programs, Savannah-Chatham’s K-9 unit handles a variety of cases. Police dogs are trained to locate and track human scent, search locations for evidence and protect their handlers. Foremost, though, is the location and apprehension of fleeing suspects.

Fighting crime

On Aug. 8, Kevin Dale Brooks, 26, and Brian Jones, 23, both of Savannah, were indicted by a Chatham County grand jury on armed robbery, burglary and false imprisonment charges, in addition to other charges in connection with the incident that occurred in May.

Savannah-Chatham police said Summerside neighborhood resident Earl Hamilton and his 12-year-old son were held overnight by two men at gunpoint at the Hamilton residence on Milton Street. According to police, Brooks forced Hamilton to drive his silver Jaguar downtown the next morning to get money from a credit union.

About 7 a.m., Hamilton drove into a curb and alerted Det. Trina Mayes, standing at Bull and Broughton streets, that he’d been kidnapped. Mayes fired a gunshot into the car, hitting the windshield, when she saw the suspect point a gun at her. Brooks then fled, dropping a stolen pistol in Johnson Square as he ran, according to police.

“The information we had at the time was that he’d shot at an officer and had a gun,” said Cpl. Eric Dukarski. “That’s why the dogs were used.”

The breed of choice among Savannah-Chatham K-9 officers is the Belgian malinois. Intelligent and energetic, they’re happiest with regular activity and a job, according to the American Kennel Club. The dogs in the K-9 unit are in high demand when other units need assistance, but Part I crimes such as murders, robberies and aggravated assaults take precedence.

In Brooks’ case, police said, he had barricaded himself inside the basement of the Olde Pink House on Reynolds Square. Dozens of patrol officers and SWAT teams responded as Dukarski and his K-9 Nado, Officer Mike Drayton and his K-9 Ivan, Officer Chris Tucker with K-9 Flash, and Cpl. Amanda McGruder with her K-9 Djieno, helping to secure the busy area.

Like a scene from a Hollywood movie, Fernandez was forced to lower Flash down through the building’s roof to gain entry.

“We weren’t prepared because we didn’t have a harness,” recalled Fernandez. “We kind of had to throw him down there. Chris threw him down there, and I caught him.”

Police spotted the suspect hiding behind a filing cabinet in the restaurant. After Flash bit him on the bicep to pull him into view, the suspect surrendered to end the three-hour stand-off.

“I kicked back to the my training,” said Fernandez. “Everybody on the SWAT team knows how to act, and it kept me calm and I was able to function.”

Ernst said the unit undergoes both certification training and what he described as real-world training to prepare the officers and dogs for any possible scenario they might encounter on the job.

“We go throughout the county and do training in all the many environments as possible,” he said.

“This way when we face a real-life situation such as we faced in (May), we had dogs that were able to search three stories of a restaurant to locate a hidden suspect. We had a dog that was ready to search a residence for the other suspect on Milton Street.

“Once that suspect made it into the wood line, we actually had dogs that were used to that wooded environment that were able to search and track him through that environment.”

As police swarmed the restaurant, other officers arrived at Hamilton’s home, where they said Jones was holding the boy. Dukarski and Tucker, along with their canines, joined the effort.

Jones managed to back a Cadillac sport utility vehicle out of the garage before wrecking it on a utility pole. He then ran into the woods, where he was found crawling through a densely wooded area by Tucker and Flash about 12:30 p.m., police said.

Hard work

Sgt. Gregory Ernst, commander of Savannah’s K-9 police division, said the award is a testament to the hard work and dedication of those in the unit.

“It would be very nice to be recognized because everybody on this unit puts an incredible amount of work into their training,” Ernst said.

The U.S. Police Canine Association also cited the unit with its District 2 Award.

Tucker, a SWAT team member who joined the K-9 unit in February, said he and his colleagues have rightly earned the attention they’ve received.

“We train every day with these dogs,” he said. “When it comes to the award, we deserve the award. We work hard. There’s not a day that goes by when our dogs aren’t doing something. Going into that situation, we’re well-prepared because we do it every day.”